X-Men: The Official Game Hands-on

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We sink our claws into Activision's mutated film prequel.

By Chris Roper

"Since the dawn of existence, there have always been moments when the course of history shifted. Such a turning point is upon us now. The conflict between the better and worse angels of our very nature, whose outcome will change our world so greatly, there will be no going back. I do not know if victory is possible. I only know that great sacrifice will be required And because the fate of many will depend on a few, we must make the last stand."

These words were spoken by Professor Charles Xavier and featured in the first trailer for X-Men: The Last Stand, foreshadowing an ominous and deadly war that quickly approaches. While tensions between Charles' students and Magneto's forces had been growing to a head, it's not exactly clear what events brought the two sides to penultimate battle. Activision's X-Men: The Official Game aims to tell us why. Taking place between the events of X2 and The Last Stand, X-Men: The Official Game acts as something of a bridge between the two movies, explaining how and why certain mutants chose sides, and more importantly, what leads the mutants to war.

We recently had a chance to get our claws on the game and play a couple levels for each of the game's three playable characters, Wolverine, Iceman and Nightcrawler. One thing that was readily apparent from our time with the game is that each of the three X-Men play entirely different than one another. Wolverine is all about brutal, close combat, Nightcrawler is about popping around to and fro while taking out enemies, and Iceman doesn't even appear to ever walk on solid ground.

For each of the three characters, we first played a tutorial level to learn how to control our new mutant powers, and then moved onto a major battle sequence. In the case of Wolverine, he begins the game atop of the Statue of Liberty, just like at the end of the first movie, entangled in a battle with Sabretooth. His move set is made up of quick, strung-together attacks and punishing strong attacks.

He's very much the type of character you'd assume he would be, slashing his claws through an enemy's chest at close range over and over again in quick succession. He's also incredibly agile with regards to defensive movement, as flicking the right stick while blocking will send him rolling in any direction, enabling you to either quickly retreat from an attack or even close in from behind and execute some undefended attacks.

Wolverine's strongest power is his ability to regenerate and recover health after an attack. He essentially has two health meters, one inside of the other in a way. Light attacks will take away his "short term" health, which will auto-regenerate on the fly, even while in combat. If Logan takes major damage or multiple hits from weaker attacks, this will cause major wounds which take more focus to recover from. After a battle, pressing L2 will heal any major wounds over a short period of time, but it leaves him entirely vulnerable, so you can't really do it while in the midst of a fight.

After the introductory level with Sabretooth and an assortment of armed gunmen, we were placed into a vicious fight with Lady Deathstrike. The battle takes place in the middle of a tornado, so should either mutant fall back into the "walls" of the tornado they would be lifted, spun about and deposited back in the middle of the battle. As Lady Deathstrike has the same regenerative powers as Logan, knocking her into the funnel was really the only way to cause any permanent or lasting damage. This one-on-one battle lasted a good 10 or 15 minutes as both characters just kept fighting back, so expect some epic fights in X-Men: The Official Game.